General Description: The name Bourj hamoud was known 200 years ago. Located 1km away from the capital Beirut. Area: 2.4km square. Bourj Hamoud is known as a one of the most important shopping centers in Lebanon. Is a center of Crafts & hand made industry as Jewelry, Leather made industry & Garments. Bourj Hamoud is divided into seven major regions: 1. Dora 2. Sader 3. River Beirut 4. Anbari (Shell region today) 5. Mar Doumet 6. Nabaa 7. Gheilan. Municipality Of Bourj hamoud is serving the locals since 1952. The Mayor is Mr. Antranik Meserlian

The traditional “Dyarentaratch” of Armenian Apostolic Church. Residents of Bourj Hamoud area gathered at KARASOUN MANOUG armenian apostolic church of Bourj Hamoud to celebrate the traditional Dyarentaratch by lighting up a fire which signifies divine illumination.

Bourj Hammoud is a great shoping area rather then touristic,both Armenians and locals go there for their shopping .It is hidden from most foriegn and Arab tourists because of its lack of advertisment ,and also after long hours of shopping its difficult to find a proper Caffe' or Caffe' Tretoire to rest your butt on a chair!!.I've never been to the USA but cant imagine to find a similar place in the entirediaspora.

SOLAR PROJECT IN THE ARMENIAN SUBURB OF BOURJ HAMMOUD PROMISES MORE ELECTRICITY FOR LEBANON

March 16, 2015

The beneficiaries of the energy produced will primarily be the people
of Bourj Hammoud, who will experience a sense that they own exceptional
clean energy produced by the river that passes through their area.

Bourj Hammoud is a suburb in North-East Beirut, Lebanon. The suburb is
heavily populated by Armenians. Bourj Hammoud is an industrious area
and is one of the most densely populated districts in the Middle East.

Bourj Hammoud was founded by survivors of the Armenian Genocide
of 1915.

Al Monitor (Beirut) - A field stretches by a river, but it does not
produce fruits and vegetables. It features, however, devices that
produce electricity from the sun. A blue expanse of solar panels
covers the Beirut River between the Armenia bridge and Yerevan bridge
in Bourj Hammoud. This solar field now has 1 megawatt of capacity,
and is estimated to guarantee 1.6 million kilowatt-hours (kwh) per
year, fulfilling the needs of around 1,000 homes.

The field is estimated to prevent the emission of around 1,000 tons
of carbon dioxide annually. Implementation is nearing completion:
3,600 solar panels have been built on a structure of concrete girders
extending across the river with steel supports -- 325 meters (about
1,066 feet) long and 32 meters (about 104 feet) wide -- that form a
"suspension bridge" without any obstruction to the flow of the river.

The solar field is expected to connect to the public network in May
2015 through a transformer and without storage. The beneficiaries of
the energy produced will primarily be the people of Bourj Hammoud,
who will experience a sense that they own exceptional clean energy
produced by the river that passes through their area.

This is the first stage of the project -- called the "Beirut River
Solar Snake" -- which is part of the national project for energy
self-sufficiency being pursued by the Lebanese Center for Energy
Conservation (LCEC), which was approved by the parliament in November
2011. The project's ultimate goal is to produce 10 megawatts from solar
fields extending 6 kilometers (3.7 miles) over the river in around 5
years, to meet the needs of 10,000 homes. The Ministry of Energy and
Water has guaranteed $3 million of funding for the first stage. It
is hoped that with the beginning of the second stage, between 1 and 2
megawatts will be produced in 2015. According to the budgeting plan,
each stage will be funded by the value of electricity produced in
the previous stage.

Is Lebanon, the country with 300 sunny days a year, really proud of
1 megawatt of solar energy, though?

Pierre El Khoury, the director of the LCEC, said that the importance
of the Beirut River Solar Snake is not in its material value alone,
but also in its encouragement of the solar market. Since the project's
implementation began in late 2013, photovoltaic systems have been
assembled in Lebanon that amount to a capacity of 30 megawatts in
the private sector, in factories, schools, hospitals and elsewhere.

Phoenix-ASACO was contracted to execute the project as it was the one
to bid the lowest price. The 12 companies that participated in the bid
are presently working on installing the photovoltaic cells to produce
electricity with solar energy. Khoury expects that between 200 and 300
additional megawatts will be produced by 2020, if the private sector
opens the gate to the production of solar electricity, and if that
production is connected to the Lebanese electrical company's network
(Electricite du Liban). In April 2014, parliament approved a law,
which the government is now creating mechanisms to implement, to allow
the government to give licenses to produce electricity based on the
recommendation of the Ministry of Energy and Water and the Ministry of
Finance. This suggestion has been made, and it is now being discussed.

As for maintenance, the most important thing is cleaning dust off the
solar panels, which will be done with hoses. Panels that break for
whatever reason will also be replaced. A 3-meter (9.8-foot) fence
will be installed on the banks of the river to prevent anyone from
reaching the panels, with permanent guards and cameras monitoring
the whole solar field.

The "solar river" will not only be for electricity production. Those
involved in the project hope it will become an "oasis of civil
organization" through a future plan to create a public park
that focuses on the spread of ideas about renewable energy and
self-sufficiency, and the construction of a path to cross the "solar
bridge" that divides Beirut and Mount Lebanon in Bourj Hammoud, the
widest river bridge in Lebanon. A sign will be erected that shows
the amount of electricity produced at different times, the amount of
carbon emissions that are avoided and the environmental benefits of
the project.

Khoury added excitedly, "The value of the project is also that it
is the first solar field in the world located above a river." Such
a project could be implemented on a canal in Aqabah, and India is
aiming to implement a plan to install solar fields over its canals. He
indicated that a project for a solar field is coming in the Zahrani
area, where the tapline refinery has been defunct for many years. The
facilities there are used to hold fuel, and there is a wide area of
land that belongs to the Ministry of Energy on which a solar field can
be built with funding from oil facilities. The goal is the production
of 1 megawatt in the first stage, with 2 megawatts to be added after
connection to the network of the Lebanese electrical company. Nine
suggestions were made, and a company will be chosen to implement this
project soon and work is expected to begin in May 2015. The price will
be lower and the implementation quicker than the Beirut River Solar
Snake project, since the solar field will be located on the ground
without the need for the extension of bridges above water. The first
stage can be completed before the end of 2015. A problem in Lebanon
could be the lack of land, but there is public property upon which
solar fields can be created. The country must not be treated as if it
is real estate only for sale that cannot be used for public interest.

The commons must be used for the benefit of people, and not for sects
and those with influence.

Bourj Hammoud, also known as "Little Armenia," is a suburb in the Metn
district of northern Beirut. The city was created by survivors of
the Armenian genocide of 1915, most of whom settled there after the
death marches in Deir ez-Zor, Syria. Today, the second generation
of Armenians after the genocide are trying to find ways to save
their heritage, mainly through the promotion of traditional crafts,
Florence Massena writes in an article published by Al-Monitor.

In the streets of Bourj Hammoud, you can find plenty of different
goods: spices, soaps, candied and dried fruits, wooden molds and many
others. And nestled together, jewelry, leather goods and tailors'
shops keep open for those interested in handicrafts, with storefronts
in Armenian, Arabic and sometimes English.

These shops do not look fancy, yet are a very important trace of
Armenian cultural heritage, after 100 years of exile in Lebanon. One of
the patrons helping to sustain this culture on a daily basis is Arpi
Mangassarian, an architect working in the Bourj Hammoud municipality
planning office. In 2009, she helped the French-speaking cultural
magazine Agenda Culturel contact local craftsmen for a book.

"I always had a passion for crafts. My father was an artist and
a handyman," she told Al-Monitor. "This book made me realize that
these people need promotion. So I restored a traditional pink villa
and in 2011 opened the Badguer Cultural Center to organize visits,
tours and exhibitions about traditional Armenian crafts. Our role is
to put the spotlight on the artisans by bringing visitors to their
stores to discover their work, like actors that we bring on stage. We
have mainly goldsmiths, especially for Italy, leather shoes and bags,
clothes, fabrics for fashion designers, turners and smelters' shops."

Badguer's aim is to help the craftsmen keep their traditions alive and
help them face the harsh realities of economics and modernity. "After
the Lebanese civil war, there was like an embargo over goods produced
in Lebanon for exportation, and cheap-standard goods arrived on the
market from China and Syria, for example," Mangassarian said.

"Many children of the local artisans started to think about taking
jobs in big companies so they could provide for their family, so we
lost around 40% of the traditional shops in Bourj Hammoud. And it
is still going on. ... The leather sector is declining because of
international competition and deterioration of purchasing power."

Badguer was founded as a way to enhance and promote the artisans'
activities, putting them in touch with designers, stylists and
architects that might be interested in quality traditional goods,
but also to show the young generations that they can make money in
their parents' jobs.

"Usually, the fathers teach their children how to work, and they
take over their business later on," Mangassarian said. "I want to
make them realize that good work brings good money. All they need
now is promotion."

Ago Karakolmikilian and his brother took over their father's shoe
shop. "It's a family business, and my father was tired after all these
years," he told Al-Monitor. "I have learned everything from him. For
us, it's a cultural resistance. It's a hard business, but we need to
keep going. Plus, we produce popular and high-quality styles to fit
any budget." For him, Armenian culture has to be perpetuated through
"Armenian schools, language and manufacturing, forever."

Other artisans' sons decide to add more specialties to their fathers'
activities, and are learning other crafts in schools. That is the case
of Roger Astourian, a diamond setter for over 20 years. "I work with my
father now, but not like him," he said. "My father has been a goldsmith
for over 50 years, so I work in his store to diversify his business."

This year, which marks the centenary of the Armenian genocide, the
Badguer Center prepared a special cultural program by the name of "The
Armenian Rebirth After the Genocide." For Mangassarian, not focusing
on 1915 was very important: "Everyone talks about the genocide,
but what happened after? We are people; we have a living culture,
artisans that survived and perpetuated through all this time."

She organized a four-pronged program: an exhibition of 100 Armenian
calendars provided by associations and institutions that publish them
every year, with poems and images from Armenia and Lebanon; lessons
about two Kilim, the flat, tapestry-woven carpets traditionally from
the Balkans to Pakistan made on weaving machines that will lead
to future carpets and rug exhibitions; an exhibition of Armenian
embroidery; and storytelling by people who remember their family
histories.

"Usually, the stories are told in private, at home, so it will be new
and maybe helpful to keep the memory alive," she said. "The Armenians
transmitted such powerful stories about the past. It is not only about
deportation and genocide; it is also about life in the villages before
1915, and also about life in the host countries."

Arpi herself was raised on these stories, told by her grandparents.

She reminisced, "My father used to ask them a lot of questions, so
they wouldn't stop talking. My brother and I unconsciously kept this
memory alive through our school compositions, but also through singing
and dancing. My mother was part of an Armenian choir interpreting
pieces from the traditional composer Komitas, an Armenian priest who
is known as the founder of the Armenian national school of music at
the beginning of the 20th century, and my grandmother used to dance
and sing songs from her village in Armenia."

This is why she asked people she knew, of her age and younger, to come
and tell her their own family stories, which she now wants to record
and diffuse. "You know, on these calendars we are going to exhibit,
there is a sentence on every page," she added. "It says, 'Be proud
of your past, be proud and keep your cultural heritage.' That is what
I am trying to do in Bourj Hammoud."

Bourj Hammoud-the region in northeast Beirut, Lebanon, which Armenian
survivors from the Armenian Genocide built into a dynamic center for
shopkeepers, craftsmen and artists-came alive on Tuesday evening, June 9,
during a talk by photographer Ariane Ateshian Delacampagne.

Close to a hundred attended the event at the Diocese of the Armenian Church
of America (Eastern) which was sponsored by the Krikor and Clara Zohrab
Information Center, the Department of Armenian Studies of the Armenian
Diocese, and AGBU Ararat magazine.

In her introduction of the speaker, Gilda Buchakjian-Kupelian, of the
Diocesan Armenian Studies Department, related that Ariane Delacampagne
studied photography at New York City's International Center of Photography
(ICP), and has worked as an anchorwoman on Lebanese TV. Her recently
published book, Portraits of Survival: The Armenians of Bourj Hammoud, has
received wide coverage in Beirut and Paris.

Born and raised in Lebanon, the speaker complemented her talk with extensive
photographs she had taken since 2006 of this vibrant community which rose
from the ashes of the 1915 Genocide. Following a brief history of Armenians
living in the Ottoman Empire, the Armenian Genocide, and the competition by
France and England for a presence in the Middle East following World War I,
she explained that starting in 1921, thousands of Armenians poured into
Syria and Lebanon, mostly by boat.

These survivors "were looking for ports that were not under Turkish control,
and Beirut, in particular, remained the only port that was unconditionally
open to the refugees." Thousands more went to the Lebanese cities of
Tripoli, Zghorta, Chekka, Tyre, Saida, Anjar and Zahle. Meanwhile, with the
establishment of the State of Greater Lebanon by France in 1920, and with
territories taken from Syria, the size of the country more than doubled in
size. Through French help, the Armenians were able to obtain Lebanese
nationality starting in 1926, when the Lebanese constitution was drafted.

Bourj Hammoud Created

Completely destitute, the Armenians had to start from scratch, and several
international organizations assisted, including the League of Nations' High
Commissioner for Refugees, the International Committee of the Red Cross, the
Near East Relief, as well as the Lebanese government. The AGBU and other
Armenian organizations were active in gathering funds to finance the
building of residential areas, and the transfer of the refugees to more
permanent structures. They also assisted in the construction of schools, and
churches, and gave the refugees food, clothes, and medical care in the
camps.

>From 1922 to 1924, four Armenian refugee camps existed in Beirut, after
which all the residents were transferred to the Greater Beirut camp. Here
the Armenians regrouped in quarters "according to their geographical
origin"-Adanatzis in the Adana quarter, Marashtzis in the Marash quarter,
etc.

In 1930, a special Office for the League of Nations Office for Refugees (the
Nansen Office) focused its efforts in a swampy and marshy area northeast of
Beirut called Bourj Hammoud. The aim was to build an Armenian city of 20,000
with its own municipality, and transfer the Armenians from the Beirut camps.
A new electoral district next to Beirut would be created where the Armenians
would be the majority. The Armenians were allowed to build wooden shacks
which were followed by concrete buildings that exist until today. Still in
their geographical quarters, they created compatriotic associations.

"These associations played a remarkable role in organizing activities in the
refugee camps," the speaker continued. "The refugees would gather a certain
sum that the Nansen Office would provide in advance, and the refugees would
build hundreds of houses and then reimburse the sum within a few years."
Most of these homes were built from the 1930s to the 1970s.

Because there were few industries in Lebanon in the 1930s, "the only option
left for the Armenians was to acquire a craft which did not require a large
financial investment, and allowed them to work as independents," she noted.
These first workshops were in the fields of shoemaking, ironwork, and
clothing manufacturing-dirty work that was not highly regarded. "The labor
division was vertical with shoemakers getting leather from tanners, and
shoeboxes to pack the goods, and traders selling the products, etc."

These trades passed from father to son, from master to apprentice, or within
orphanages. "Through the hard work of the refugees, what was first just a
tent camp gradually became an urban center, and also one of the most densely
populated districts in the Middle East. It was also one of the main centers
of economic activity," she related.

Strong Sense of Armenian Identity

The speaker revealed that she discovered Bourj Hammoud "long after" she had
left Lebanon for America. Visiting the area in 2000, she said she found in
Bourj Hammoud "a human scale and authenticity that was lacking elsewhere. I
was struck by the strong sense of identity, the persistence of everything
that was authentically Armenian, from the food and spices to the very warmth
of the residents."

She reported that she started by visiting the Cahl organization, initially
an institute for the blind which became a home for the elderly. There she
met Rosa Tcholakian born in Dyarbekir in 1914, Zvart Zournadjian born in
Kharpert in the1920s, and Ossana Soulian born in Kessab, Syria in 1922, "all
of whom spoke very little." The speaker related that she also accompanied
Armenian Red Cross Lokh social workers who helped young students with
learning disabilities, and went with church ladies to visit destitute
Armenians.

Because she was chastised during her Beirut exhibition for showing such sad
pictures, and not focusing instead on successful Armenians whom she was told
"rode BMW's and wore Rolex watches," the speaker reported that she decided
to concentrate on presenting subjects that she "felt had a personal
connection" to her.

Among the 21 successful individuals she profiled was Boghos Svadjian with
the nickname of Boghos Kalashnikov for using the Russian-made rifle to
defend his neighborhood during the 1975-1990 Lebanese civil war. An actor,
and a fisherman, he sells his catch and prepares sushi for clients and
restaurants. Sculptor Ashod Terzian teaches art, plays the accordion, and
has a shop "like a museum" where he has made sculptures of Lebanese
politicians.

Then there is 84-year-old Abraham Baklayan who had a men's clothing shop
that was plundered and burnt down during the 1975 civil war. He now sells
lace napkins and tablecloths out of a makeshift sheet metal shop. And
40-year-old Jacques Ghazarian whose family hailed from Marash, Turkey, is
following the family tradition of baking Armenian specialties. He has turned
his family bakery into a flourishing business.

Jeanne Kitsinian, an 80-year-old woman, along with Krikor Kabakian in the
U.S., makes religious vestments, capes, and mitres, and sells them on the
internet to Armenian congregations worldwide. Hagop "Jackson" Keshesian,
almost 70, follows in his father's shoe business, making orthopedic, and
dancing shoes, as well as horseback riding boots to customers who live as
far away as Los Angeles. And 29-year-old Krikor Jabotian is a fashion
designer who employs 20 people. His award-winning designs are worn by
celebrities and brides. A fan of legendary filmmaker Parajanov, he also
designs stage costumes and jewelry.

During the Q-and-A session, the speaker revealed that though Bourj Hammoud
today is still an area of thriving businesses, many of the Armenian youth
are leaving, and the area is now mainly inhabited by elderly Armenians.
Also, Armenians from Aleppo, Syria, are coming in due to the devastating
civil war. But, she declared, as in decades past, with their lives disrupted
several times, Armenians, as shown by these portraits "are always able to
bounce back, and revitalize."

The director of the Zohrab Center, the Very Rev. Fr. Daniel Findikyan,
expressed appreciation to Ms. Ateshian Delacampagne for her intriguing
presentation. Fr. Findikyan, who planned and organized this season's
successful Zohrab Center programs, announced that starting in the fall, the
Zohrab Center will present a new series of interesting lectures, poetry, and
films.